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Book Me

Please contact me if you would like to book me for conferences, training or consultancy work – or to explore how these might benefit your organisation.

Organisations I have worked with in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, UK and USA include:

  • Aarhus Kommune (Denmark)
  • Advocates, Inc. Framingham (USA)
  • Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
  • Asylum Associates
  • Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
  • Beside Mental Health Community Project
  • Building Bridges Trust (New Zealand)
  • Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
  • Camden and Islington Providers Forum
  • Care Services Improvement Services
  • Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust
  • Chester Mind
  • City & Hackney Mind
  • Community Service Volunteers
  • Core Arts
  • Critical Voices Network (Ireland)
  • Dansk Selskab for Psykosocial Rehabilitering (Denmark)
  • Down & Lisburn Mental Health Trust (Ireland)
  • Division of Clinical Psychology
  • Durham University
  • Enfield Council
  • Equinox Care
  • Family Care Foundation (Sweden)
  • Family Tree
  • Family Welfare Association
  • Foundation Excellence in Mental Health (USA)
  • Freedom Centre, Northampton, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • Freud’s Friends
  • Gateway Community Health, Wodonga (Australia)
  • Goldsmiths University
  • Hampshire Social Services
  • Hearing Voices Network
  • Hellenic Hearing Voices Network (Greece)
  • Hertfordshire County Council
  • HM Prison Birmingham
  • Institute of Psychiatry
  • Intervoice
  • IGPB (Netherlands)
  • ISPS (New Zealand)
  • ISPS (UK)
  • Islington Mind
  • Lambeth Mind
  • Lancaster University
  • Leeds Mind
  • Lincoln University
  • London Borough of Sutton
  • London Cyrenians Housing Ltd.
  • London Development Centre
  • London Metropolitan University
  • London South Bank University
  • Loughborough University
  • Mad in America (USA)
  • The Market Place Leeds
  • Mental Health Media
  • Middlesbrough Mind
  • Mind in Camden
  • Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • National Mind
  • Network for Change
  • Newham NHS Trust
  • Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
  • Northampton Social Services
  • Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Notting Hill Housing Association
  • National Survivor User Network
  • One Housing Group
  • Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
  • Prahran Mission (Australia)
  • Psykovision (Denmark)
  • Rampton Hospital, Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Rethink
  • Richmond Fellowship (Australia)
  • Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
  • Royal College Of Psychiatry
  • Schizophrenia Ireland
  • SHIP Leeds
  • Shropshire Council
  • Social Care Institute for Excellence
  • South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust
  • Spring Lake Ranch (USA)
  • St James House
  • St Mungo’s
  • Sutton Mental Health Foundation
  • Thames Reach
  • Tiger Aspect Films
  • Tigerlily Films
  • Together
  • Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
  • University College Cork (Ireland)
  • University College London
  • University of Auckland (New Zealand)
  • University of East London
  • University of Essex
  • University of Greenwich
  • University of Manchester
  • University of Savonna (Italy)
  • University Of Surrey
  • Voice Collective
  • Voices of the Heart (USA)
  • Voices Vic (Australia)
  • Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (USA)
  • Westminster Mind
  • Wolverhampton Social Services
  • Working to Recovery

Consultancy

I can offer my unique perspective of working with and making sense of profound distress and extreme states of mind and the impact it has on individuals, teams and organizations. I also have extensive experience in working collaboratively, creatively and in partnership with disempowered and disenfranchised individuals and groups to bring about sustained and lasting improved positive outcomes.  I have provided coaching and mentoring, supervision and consultancy to individuals, teams and organisations.

Case Study:

I recently worked as a consultant for a large provider of services to people who are homeless. I was asked to facilitate a process which focused specifically on the experience of female service users many of whom were defined as having complex needs e.g. survivors of childhood abuse and neglect, currently homeless, using drugs i.e. crack cocaine, sex working, issues with self-harm, eating disorders, mental health issues and were also dealing with the effects of the ensuing loss of their families.

My initial remit was to facilitate a day that aimed to critically evaluate how the organisation could effectively improve services for women. The day was attended by service users, front line workers, area managers and senior managers. Drawing on the collective experience and expertise of both staff and service users attending the workshop, the session explored:

  • Whether women presented more complex support issues than their male counterparts?
  • What were the key elements of successful support services for women?
  • How could we best ensure consistency across various projects?
  • What were the essential skills and knowledge required by staff teams?

The information which was shared and documented during this day helped to inform the development of an implementation group for the organisations women’s strategy, and established clear targets which had been shaped and defined by women’s experiences of using the service and staff experiences of delivering the service.

I then facilitated a 2nd complimentary session with staff from a number of different projects and departments within the organisation to capture learning to date and plan the future work-streams: specifically looking at staff training, service structure and equalities issues.

As a consequence there are new, specific learning opportunities for staff, alongside a developing coherence of service delivery to women who have experienced trauma, abuse and sexual exploitation.

This consultation work continues and will inform the future structure, planning and efficacy of services.

Training

Training

The training I offer is based on extensive personal and professional experience, knowledge and skills. All training is experiential enabling participants to develop a deeper understanding and greater insight by exploring experiences from both a subjective and objective perspective.

All training is bespoke so it can be tailored to meet the needs of your organisation.

Previous courses include:

  • Hearing Voices Awareness
  • Advanced Skills in Working with Voice Hearers
  • Hearing Voices Group Facilitation & Network Development
  • Beyond Survival – Working with Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
  • Abuse, Trauma and Dissociation: Understanding and Working Towards Recovery
  • Advanced Complex Trauma and Working with Sex Workers
  • Ritual Abuse: Thinking About the Unthinkable
  • Working with Self Harm
  • Service User Involvement & User Led Initiatives
  • Helping the Helpers: How Best to Support Your Loved One – For Carers, Allies & Familes
  • Vicarious Traumatisation: Roles, Power and Safety in the Healing Process
  • Therapeutic Use of Self: Path of the Wounded Healer

Please contact me if you would like to discuss your organisation’s training needs.

See my testimonials page to view, or share, feedback on my training courses

Collective Voices

The Hearing Voices Movement was founded more than 20 years ago, following the ground-breaking research of Professor Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher who have advocated for a radical shift in the way we understand the phenomenon of Hearing Voices.  Rather than taking the traditional approach favored by biological psychiatry, which views voices as a product of brain and cognitive faults, their research has firmly established that voices make sense when looking at the traumatic circumstances in life that provoked them. As the improvement in people who are encouraged to talk about their voices becomes apparent, an increasing number of voice hearers and mental health professionals are beginning to see that the key to making sense of these experiences lies in understanding the content of voices. Voices are meaningful and for some, an experience to be celebrated.

Reclaiming Experience

Many of us who have received psychiatric treatment have found that it’s ‘blame the individual and blame the brain’ emphasis, has limited the way we can think about ourselves and our potentials. We are expected to be the silent recipients of treatment for disorders, and often, medication is the only option.  No-one asks, what do you think would help? – Our own expertise and wisdom about our lives is denied or ignored. Like naughty children we are told what to do, and then given contradictory opinions – that the only way to get better is to take medication, but that actually, we wilI never really get better anyway.

The bad brain emphasis in contemporary mental health ideology is that distress and confusion are best explained as unhealthy conditions, products of brain and cognitive faults. For example, personality disorder diagnosis implies that the chaos we can experience is due to a character fault and schizophrenia is presented as a terrible disease that we are passive victims of. We have progressed from blaming the behaviour of the child who is bullied and withdraws to blaming his brain and mind. Our attempts to find meaningful ways to live in an often distressing and confusing world, are not understood as creative, human responses to be valued and shared. Instead, the individual is pathologised, labelled and medicated.

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Book Me

Please contact me if you would like to book me for conferences, training or consultancy work – or to explore how these might benefit your organisation.

Organisations I have worked with in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, UK and USA include:

  • Aarhus Kommune (Denmark)
  • Advocates, Inc. Framingham (USA)
  • Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust
  • Asylum Associates
  • Barnet, Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust
  • Beside Mental Health Community Project
  • Building Bridges Trust (New Zealand)
  • Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust
  • Camden and Islington Providers Forum
  • Care Services Improvement Services
  • Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Trust
  • Chester Mind
  • City & Hackney Mind
  • Community Service Volunteers
  • Core Arts
  • Critical Voices Network (Ireland)
  • Dansk Selskab for Psykosocial Rehabilitering (Denmark)
  • Down & Lisburn Mental Health Trust (Ireland)
  • Division of Clinical Psychology
  • Durham University
  • Enfield Council
  • Equinox Care
  • Family Care Foundation (Sweden)
  • Family Tree
  • Family Welfare Association
  • Foundation Excellence in Mental Health (USA)
  • Freedom Centre, Northampton, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • Freud’s Friends
  • Gateway Community Health, Wodonga (Australia)
  • Goldsmiths University
  • Hampshire Social Services
  • Hearing Voices Network
  • Hellenic Hearing Voices Network (Greece)
  • Hertfordshire County Council
  • HM Prison Birmingham
  • Institute of Psychiatry
  • Intervoice
  • IGPB (Netherlands)
  • ISPS (New Zealand)
  • ISPS (UK)
  • Islington Mind
  • Lambeth Mind
  • Lancaster University
  • Leeds Mind
  • Lincoln University
  • London Borough of Sutton
  • London Cyrenians Housing Ltd.
  • London Development Centre
  • London Metropolitan University
  • London South Bank University
  • Loughborough University
  • Mad in America (USA)
  • The Market Place Leeds
  • Mental Health Media
  • Middlesbrough Mind
  • Mind in Camden
  • Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, (USA)
  • National Mind
  • Network for Change
  • Newham NHS Trust
  • Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust
  • Northampton Social Services
  • Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Notting Hill Housing Association
  • National Survivor User Network
  • One Housing Group
  • Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust
  • Prahran Mission (Australia)
  • Psykovision (Denmark)
  • Rampton Hospital, Nottingham Healthcare NHS Trust
  • Rethink
  • Richmond Fellowship (Australia)
  • Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council
  • Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
  • Royal College Of Psychiatry
  • Schizophrenia Ireland
  • SHIP Leeds
  • Shropshire Council
  • Social Care Institute for Excellence
  • South Staffordshire and Shropshire NHS Foundation Trust
  • Spring Lake Ranch (USA)
  • St James House
  • St Mungo’s
  • Sutton Mental Health Foundation
  • Thames Reach
  • Tiger Aspect Films
  • Tigerlily Films
  • Together
  • Trinity College Dublin (Ireland)
  • University College Cork (Ireland)
  • University College London
  • University of Auckland (New Zealand)
  • University of East London
  • University of Essex
  • University of Greenwich
  • University of Manchester
  • University of Savonna (Italy)
  • University Of Surrey
  • Voice Collective
  • Voices of the Heart (USA)
  • Voices Vic (Australia)
  • Western Mass Recovery Learning Community (USA)
  • Westminster Mind
  • Wolverhampton Social Services
  • Working to Recovery

Consultancy

I can offer my unique perspective of working with and making sense of profound distress and extreme states of mind and the impact it has on individuals, teams and organizations. I also have extensive experience in working collaboratively, creatively and in partnership with disempowered and disenfranchised individuals and groups to bring about sustained and lasting improved positive outcomes.  I have provided coaching and mentoring, supervision and consultancy to individuals, teams and organisations.

Case Study:

I recently worked as a consultant for a large provider of services to people who are homeless. I was asked to facilitate a process which focused specifically on the experience of female service users many of whom were defined as having complex needs e.g. survivors of childhood abuse and neglect, currently homeless, using drugs i.e. crack cocaine, sex working, issues with self-harm, eating disorders, mental health issues and were also dealing with the effects of the ensuing loss of their families.

My initial remit was to facilitate a day that aimed to critically evaluate how the organisation could effectively improve services for women. The day was attended by service users, front line workers, area managers and senior managers. Drawing on the collective experience and expertise of both staff and service users attending the workshop, the session explored:

  • Whether women presented more complex support issues than their male counterparts?
  • What were the key elements of successful support services for women?
  • How could we best ensure consistency across various projects?
  • What were the essential skills and knowledge required by staff teams?

The information which was shared and documented during this day helped to inform the development of an implementation group for the organisations women’s strategy, and established clear targets which had been shaped and defined by women’s experiences of using the service and staff experiences of delivering the service.

I then facilitated a 2nd complimentary session with staff from a number of different projects and departments within the organisation to capture learning to date and plan the future work-streams: specifically looking at staff training, service structure and equalities issues.

As a consequence there are new, specific learning opportunities for staff, alongside a developing coherence of service delivery to women who have experienced trauma, abuse and sexual exploitation.

This consultation work continues and will inform the future structure, planning and efficacy of services.

Training

Training

The training I offer is based on extensive personal and professional experience, knowledge and skills. All training is experiential enabling participants to develop a deeper understanding and greater insight by exploring experiences from both a subjective and objective perspective.

All training is bespoke so it can be tailored to meet the needs of your organisation.

Previous courses include:

  • Hearing Voices Awareness
  • Advanced Skills in Working with Voice Hearers
  • Hearing Voices Group Facilitation & Network Development
  • Beyond Survival – Working with Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse
  • Abuse, Trauma and Dissociation: Understanding and Working Towards Recovery
  • Advanced Complex Trauma and Working with Sex Workers
  • Ritual Abuse: Thinking About the Unthinkable
  • Working with Self Harm
  • Service User Involvement & User Led Initiatives
  • Helping the Helpers: How Best to Support Your Loved One – For Carers, Allies & Familes
  • Vicarious Traumatisation: Roles, Power and Safety in the Healing Process
  • Therapeutic Use of Self: Path of the Wounded Healer

Please contact me if you would like to discuss your organisation’s training needs.

See my testimonials page to view, or share, feedback on my training courses

Collective Voices

The Hearing Voices Movement was founded more than 20 years ago, following the ground-breaking research of Professor Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher who have advocated for a radical shift in the way we understand the phenomenon of Hearing Voices.  Rather than taking the traditional approach favored by biological psychiatry, which views voices as a product of brain and cognitive faults, their research has firmly established that voices make sense when looking at the traumatic circumstances in life that provoked them. As the improvement in people who are encouraged to talk about their voices becomes apparent, an increasing number of voice hearers and mental health professionals are beginning to see that the key to making sense of these experiences lies in understanding the content of voices. Voices are meaningful and for some, an experience to be celebrated.

Reclaiming Experience

Many of us who have received psychiatric treatment have found that it’s ‘blame the individual and blame the brain’ emphasis, has limited the way we can think about ourselves and our potentials. We are expected to be the silent recipients of treatment for disorders, and often, medication is the only option.  No-one asks, what do you think would help? – Our own expertise and wisdom about our lives is denied or ignored. Like naughty children we are told what to do, and then given contradictory opinions – that the only way to get better is to take medication, but that actually, we wilI never really get better anyway.

The bad brain emphasis in contemporary mental health ideology is that distress and confusion are best explained as unhealthy conditions, products of brain and cognitive faults. For example, personality disorder diagnosis implies that the chaos we can experience is due to a character fault and schizophrenia is presented as a terrible disease that we are passive victims of. We have progressed from blaming the behaviour of the child who is bullied and withdraws to blaming his brain and mind. Our attempts to find meaningful ways to live in an often distressing and confusing world, are not understood as creative, human responses to be valued and shared. Instead, the individual is pathologised, labelled and medicated.